She considered this. “OK,” she said finally. “Put me in the stroller and let me try it.”
Now, I made my way through the tranquil galleries, spending extra moments with several favorites: de Kooning and Pollock, feeling their sense of action; with the dichotomy of Beckman’s “Paris Society”—that couple in the forefront on the right, so despondent, so disconnected—with Seurat’s peasants; with Delaunay’s and Chagall’s modulating views of the Eiffel Tower; and I avoided Modigliani’s reclining women: too sensuous, too real, too familiar, with their languid poses, inviting softness, tufts of dark hair, tranquil faces, overwhelming beauty. I spent a minute or so under Calder’s “Red Lily Pads”; I’m certain the mobile caught Davy’s infant eyes. He was sighing in delight, gurgling, his eyes darting in innocent curiosity; I’m sure he was studying it from his stroller as it wafted above him.
The stroller Weisz grabbed and flung onto the tracks, my son strapped to its soft seat. What did my Davy see then? In the last seconds of his young life, how much did he understand?
I placate myself, as I have placated Bella, with the thought that he was too young to understand any part of it.
I shook my head, took a breath and moved from Brancusi’s exquisite sculptures to what I call industrial mess. Assemblage is what the curators and critics call it, or, more accurately, Junk Art: a twisted collection of automobile parts, a battered typesetting machine; a platinum Star of David with a ball and rails like a child’s puzzle, wood glued awkwardly to wires, terra cotta flung against a wall, puffy vinyl, chromium rods. To read the Guggenheim’s catalogue is to confront an exercise in justification. Normally, I pass, particularly when so much challenging brilliance is nearby.
But I was drawn by the memory of one work, perhaps the best-known one-off to come out of the downtown scene of the early ’80s. Vlad Smith’s “Angel/Angle” was essentially a polished-aluminum box, about five feet on all sides, crudely welded, with a suggestive slit torn in its top, with rough shards of metal seemingly reaching for freedom. I’d heard the piece compared to everything from David Smith’s welded sculptures to Georgia O’Keeffe’s plates. Sexual cubism, Vlad Smith called it. And it was acquired by an enthusiastic collector (for a phenomenal sum, I suppose), then donated to the Guggenheim, which displayed it alongside Chamberlain and Beuys and, sadly, not very far from Brancusi and Noguchi.
But Smith, who went by the street name Bullethead, never came close to producing a work comparable to “Angel/Angle,” which, it turned out, was the result of a minor accident. No visionary, but wise to the ways of the scene in the ’80s, Smith had merely set out to blow up the cube and to sell the remnants. Smithereens, he was going to call the little pieces. When he set the explosive charge, he had no idea that he would create the cube’s vaginalike aperture or the concurrent fingerlike shards that stretched from the abrupt opening. According to a piece I’d read in AbEx magazine, Smith had spent the next few years blowing up aluminum cubes, trying in vain to replicate “Angel/Angle,” selling a few fragments here and there, converting the profits into powdered cocaine and ramming it up his nose. Of all the frauds that were exposed as the ’80s faded into history, Bullethead might’ve been the biggest. If memory served, a particularly scalding brand of arrogance and obnoxiousness made him perhaps the most satisfying flop of the decade.
As I looked at the piece, alone in the white-walled gallery, I wondered where Bullethead was today. And, if he was still downtown, I wondered if he ever learned how to use explosives. I chuckled as I imagined him demonstrating his artistic skills to a gaggle of fawning devotees, who, hoping to bid early on the next “Angel/Angle,” crouched behind heavy Plexiglas shields as he “created” his next masterpiece. And I imagined their silence as the aluminum box either did not burst in such a way as to create a sensual or suggestive shape; or it exploded into—Christ—Smithereens.
A short woman about my age in blue overalls, a raspberry t-shirt, scuffed Birkenstocks and raspberry socks tiptoed in reverentially and joined me at the sculpture. She stood on her toes to better examine the opening. After several seconds of teetering and nodding, she turned to me.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” she said in admiration.
“Well, it is something,” I replied flatly.
“You can never tell when genius will strike,” she said.
“No,” I said, “and someday it might.”
She smiled, as if I’d agreed with her. “I can’t get enough of it,” she said. “It says everything about the power of liberation.”
She was still smiling, still studying the cube, when I left the room.
I arrived at Harteveld’s building about 25 minutes after the hour, girded myself as best as I could, and took the elevator down to her basement office. When I entered the cramped waiting room, Bella was entertaining John, Harteveld’s assistant and office manager, who was at his station behind a white, waist-high counter. I couldn’t be sure what they had been talking about since as soon as I stepped into the room, John, who had been smiling broadly, gestured with his head; Bella turned and they were both immediately silent. Rail-thin, effeminate John, whom I’d never seen outside his crisp lab coat, looked at me and nodded curtly. I was certain he didn’t approve of me, and if the relationship between psychiatrist and assistant was anything like boss and secretary, it was because Harteveld told him she didn’t approve of me or how I was raising my daughter. I was certain of that.
“Mr. Orr, good afternoon,” John muttered dourly. “I’ll tell Dr. Harteveld you’re finally here.”
He frowned as he picked up the handset.
As Bella came toward me, I noticed on the table, near a collection of outdated magazines, one of her marble notebooks, the latest chapter of “My Personal Archive.” In addition to her notes, clippings and drawings on the explosion at Judy’s, it likely contained her thoughts on Diddio and the Yes concert and the ride uptown with Sol, and maybe there was something in there about me and how I’d been sharp with her over her Paine essay or how I still walk her to school. Or how I won’t let her get a tattoo—“Francine’s mother said she can get one”—and how I don’t want to see Harteveld and “get better again, like before.” How I will never write again.
“You’re late,” she said. “You’re always late.”
“I’m not late. I thought you’d still be in with Dr. Harteveld.”
“I don’t have an appointment today. You have an appointment today.”
“I guess I didn’t understand,” I replied meekly, as I reached into my back pocket and withdrew a postcard I picked up at the Guggenheim. “Peace offering.”
She looked at it. “Braque,” she said, reading the legend on back. ‘“Violin and Palette.’” She turned it over and glanced at the detail. “Very fourth-dimension.”
“Put it in your journal,” I said gesturing with my hand. As if to prevent me from grabbing it, she reached for the book and clutched it tightly.
I was going to remind her that many times she had left the notebook out in plain sight and that I’d never even sneaked a glimpse. Instead, I asked, “Where’s Mrs. Maoli?”
“She’s in the ladies’ room. She wants to go home.”
“All right,” I said, “send her home. I’ll go see Dr. Harteveld.” I started toward the desk, toward John, then stopped. “Did you repay her for the cab?”
She looked at me sternly, with wide eyes. Apparently, I am a stupid man.
“You may go in,” John added.
I went down the white corridor.
Elizabeth Harteveld had the requisite couch, a green leather one, and matching green leather club chairs that sat not quite facing each other in front of her large rosewood desk. She didn’t require her patients to lie on the sofa. Instead, she usually came from behind the desk and took her place in one uncomfortable green chair while the patient sat in the other.
She shook my hand at the door and let me pass. As I stepped on her red-and-cream Persian rug on the parquet floor, I saw that nothing had
changed in the office since my last visit nearly a month ago: A small microphone sat near the potted plant on the end table between the couch and her desk. I once wondered aloud how the plants managed to look so healthful in a room without windows.
Harteveld smiled, but didn’t reply. I assumed she simply replaced them when they started to yellow and sag. When something is merely of a kind, it is easily replaced.
Her diplomas, riddled with calligraphy and Latin, were hung on the wall facing her patients. She had a computer monitor on the credenza behind the desk, but it was turned off. Soft, formless music came from somewhere. Shutting the door, she went to her desk to retrieve a pale blue file. She invited me to sit. As I did, the music stopped.
“Does the chair trigger the recorder?” I asked.
“No. There’s a foot pedal under my desk, actually,” she said. “The music stops when the recorder is turned on.”
“I see.” She was more forthcoming than usual.
She adjusted her lab coat as she sat, and she slid on her gold-framed bifocals. With her Cross pen, she began jotting a few notes onto a sheet of paper inside the file folder.
I studied her as she wrote. I guessed she was about 10 years older than I was. Her dark-brown hair was swept back from her long face and held in a small, practical bun by a gold clip. I had to admit that she was an attractive woman, lean and fit, with well-defined features: a thin nose, dark eyes, a pleasant mouth. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, but I knew she was married: Once she slipped and told Bella something about her two sons, ages 17 and 20. Bella told me she asked Harteveld if her sons liked having a psychiatrist for a mother and she replied that her husband was one as well. Bella said, “Everybody must be pretty careful about what they say at breakfast.”
With me, Harteveld did not reveal as much. On the assumption that her practice was sound and lucrative, I once asked her why she kept a small office in a basement of an apartment building off First Avenue. Her response: “Does it matter to you where we are now, Mr. Orr?”
Today, as she closed the blue file, she began with the basics: “How have you been, Mr. Orr?”
“I’m fine, Doctor. How are you?”
“I believe we said that you would call me Elizabeth.” She smiled her professional smile.
“Only if you called me Terry.”
She nodded agreeably. “It has been a while, Terry.”
“Yes, but I remember the rules.”
“I understand you had a little excitement this week.”
I knew what she meant. “I wouldn’t call seeing Yes exciting, but I suppose art is subjective.”
She smiled again. “Tell me about returning to the Henley Harper Gallery.”
“I didn’t know it was going to explode.”
“Of course not. I’m just curious as to why you decided to visit the place where your wife’s work was presented.”
“I didn’t decide. Bella did. And Marina’s work was never shown at that gallery. Judy had a place on West Broadway back then.” That was before West Broadway in SoHo began to resemble an upscale strip mall in Paramus.
“Bella said—”
“No, no, no, Doctor,” I cautioned. “Remember the rules.”
Now only I called my daughter Bella. Marina had preferred the full, formal Gabriella, the name she’d chosen. But when Davy, then a little more than a year old, tried to pronounce his sister’s name, it came out “Bella.” Which was perfect; Marina turned and told me Davy had just called his sister “beautiful” in Italian.
“My apologies,” Harteveld offered. “Gabriella said she enjoyed herself until the disturbance. Would you mind telling me what happened?”
“Somebody said there was a bomb and there was a bomb.”
“Did you feel you were in danger?”
I shrugged. “It’s almost always a prank.”
“And did you feel Gabriella was in danger?” she asked.
“I got her out of there in record time.”
“But you hit someone. Someone who you thought threatened her.”
“Someone who hit her. Do you know a father who wouldn’t defend his daughter when that happens?” I asked, rhetorically. “If you do, get him in this chair.”
“I understand,” she said calmly. “So you perceived that she was in danger but that you weren’t?”
I thought for a moment. “Yes.”
She made a note in the folder. “I think we’ve agreed that you enjoy a sense of danger.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
“You’ve said that one of the things that interests you about being a private detective is that there is a sense of danger.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I’ve never told Harteveld why I’d become a P.I. The reason ought to be clear to anyone, especially a psychiatrist. But if I confirm what she ought to know, she will never help me understand the madman Weisz.
I hope no one thinks I come here for any other reason than that.
“I said,” I told her, “that I thought it might get the adrenaline going. And for the record, I’m not a private detective. I don’t detect: magnifying glass, litmus paper, no. I investigate, and mostly by reading briefs and digging out files at the County Clerk’s office. And I do it for myself, though I don’t mind helping the D.A. with a little legwork, if I can. But if you think reading through a bunch of Blumberg forms is dangerous …” I let it go.
“The adrenaline. Yes, as when you were playing basketball.”
“Yep.”
“Do you think you will be able to replicate that feeling as a private de—investigator?”
“You’re fishing. The work is interesting sometimes. Maybe even rewarding, when I’m reading a brief and I suddenly understand what’s really going on. But an adrenaline rush? No.”
“I understand you are investigating the bombing at the gallery, Terry,” she pressed. “Does that give you the rush you like?”
“No,” I said.
“And what about the murder investigation? Is it safe to say that it gives you a physical sensation that you miss?” Christ, what else did Bella tell her? “No.”
“Will you elaborate, please?”
I shook my head. “I’m looking into the bombing because my wife’s friend was injured. The murder is about curiosity, nothing more.”
She looked into the blue folder. “May I try something with you, Terry?”
“Why not?” I shifted in the soft chair.
“Are you still resistant to the idea that you pursue these activities to seek a form of absolution as a reaction to the murder of your wife and son?”
“Ah, Bella’s Batman theory. Again.”
“You must concede that it’s possible you want to atone for not being able to protect your family.”
“What I do now cannot undo that.”
“No, I understand, Terry—”
“Sixteen years in Catholic schools taught me all I need to know about the inadequacies of the sin/penance/absolution myth. Elizabeth.”
She permitted herself a small smile. “Yes, of course, but surely it is more than that. Anyone in your situation—”
“Ah!” I exclaimed, snapping my fingers at her. “My ‘situation.’ It is not a situation, Elizabeth. It is not temporary.”
“Of course not. What I’m suggesting, though, is that perhaps if there is a better understanding of your behavior …”
“My ‘behavior.’”
“… you might address your circumstances, shall we say, in a more productive manner.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
She waited.
“Your turn,” I said finally.
“Is there a more productive way, a more linear way, do you think?”
I uncrossed my legs. “I don’t know. I’m just living. That’s all. Just living.”
“You have these thoughts of what you could have done—”
“I wasn’t there,” I said sharply. “I was somewhere else. Remember? Remember?”
�
�Yes, Terry, and what began as a typical day suddenly, inexplicably …”
I should have been there. I could’ve stopped Weisz, or I could’ve gotten Davy back on the platform before the train barreled through. Marina would never have had to jump down after him, groping, stumbling as she frantically reacted. I know I should have been there. Christ, I know.
“And I do agree, Terry, it is not temporary. But how you … how you proceed toward recovery— Terry, are you all right?”
I felt a constricting tightness across my chest and my head suddenly felt as if it might burst.
“Terry?”
I bent at the waist and put my head in my hands. “I’m fine.”
“Are you certain?”
“I’m— I know me,” I said as I stared at her.
“It’s difficult, I know. But this, I think, is something worth discussing. This concept of atonement—”
“Look, I’ve told you why I’m doing what I’m doing.” I sat back.
“Yes, I know you have. But might I suggest that thinking of what you do as a prelude to revenge—”
“I’ve never said that,” I snapped.
“The real issue for you, I think, isn’t revenge, but vindication. And this is quite legitimate. It is how we give meaning to our lives after profound, personal trauma.”
“Elizabeth, why the hell do you always insist there’s something more to it? Christ. ‘Atonement.’ ‘Vindication.’ It’s bullshit!”
“You are shouting, Terry.”
“Yes. I am.”
“You are annoyed,” she said. “Are you annoyed with me or—”
Closing Time Page 12