Other people

by Sol Stein

  "I'll do it with my hand if you'll untie me."

  "You tried to get away."

  What would he believe?

  "I just wanted to make sure the front door was locked so nobody would come in."

  "I locked it."

  "I didn't see you lock it."

  "You saw. Now be nice. No use getting hurt, is there?"

  "Can we talk?" I asked. My tied arms hurt.

  "About what?"

  "You want to… have sex, don't you?"

  "I didn't come here to play marbles."

  "I mean your wife upstairs, what about her, having sex with her, wouldn't that—"

  "I don't want you talking about my wife."

  "Okay."

  "Get back in the bedroom."

  "Sure." Got to keep him talking. "What kind of sex do you like?"

  "What do you mean what kind?"

  "You know what I mean. If it's different kinds and—" Mustn't mention his wife. "There are prostitutes who will do anything. I'll give you the money." I knew it was the wrong thing the instant I said it.

  He slapped my face. "I don't need your money. I got all the money I want."

  It came out of me like a wail. "Why me??"

  He smiled.

  He actually smiled. "I been watching you. You got class."

  "There're supposed to be a lot of call girls with real class."

  "Where'm I supposed to call them? The gas station? My house?"

  "I'd let you use my apartment," I said eagerly.

  "I'm using your apartment right now."

  There must be something I can do. "You could go to jail," I said. "It isn't worth it, is it?"

  "Let's find out. Take that thing off."

  "I can't. My arms are tied."

  "Unzip."

  "It won't come over my arms."

  "Lie down and pull it up. All the way up."

  I sat down on the bed. "You don't want to go to jail."

  He slapped me across the face, harder this time. "I'm not going to no jail."

  "That hurt."

  "Good. Nobody goes to jail if nobody talks. You're not going to talk. I live right upstairs. You do anything I don't like and you're finished, see?"

  Koslak pushed me, swung my legs up on the bed, tugged at my caftan, pulling it up.

  Kick him? Is it worth getting killed resisting? I pressed my thighs together.

  "No you don't," he said, taking his pants off. "Spread. I want to see it."

  "There're plenty of magazines with pictures," I said.

  He pulled his T-shirt over his head.

  He's not removing his shorts. His thing isn't hard, that's the problem. I'm safe as long as…

  He had picked up the sewing scissors from the dressing table. "You gonna spread?"

  I did as I was told.

  "Real nice," he said, dropping the scissors on the table. He was rubbing his thing through his shorts, desperately I thought. Then he reached out with his left hand. "You're dry," he said.

  The idiot expects me to be excited.

  I had an idea. "I'll make it easier," I said. "See that jar?"

  He glanced over at the dressing table, as if expecting a trick.

  "The cold cream," I said.

  He opened the jar, dipped two fingers in it.

  "Not on me," I said. "On you."

  He took his shorts off, put the cold cream on his thing.

  "Rub it," I said. "Put your hand around it and stroke it."

  At least, I thought, I won't have to put it in my mouth.

  He stopped stroking when it was half erect again.

  "Want me to help?" I said. It might work.

  He smiled. A bit suspicious yet, but smiled.

  "Untie my arms so I…"

  "No funny stuff."

  "Promise."

  When he had untied me, his thing had lost most of its rigidity. Have to go through with it, I thought. This way is better.

  I pulled the caftan completely off and let his eyes inspect me. The circulation was coming back into my hands. Think of it like a chess game. I took his thing and started stroking it. It was quickly erect, with that funny angling over to one side, as it was when I had turned from looking out of the window. With my left hand, I held his balls from underneath, stroking with my right.

  "Okay?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  Find his rhythm and keep to it.

  Suddenly he wrenched away from me. "You're trying to make me come!"

  "Isn't that what you wanted?"

  "Lie down!"

  The scissors on the dressing table. Could I plunge it deep enough to kill him? Even if I stabbed him, it might not kill him. He could wrench the scissors away, kill me with them.

  I closed my eyes. Don't close your eyes, remember something to describe him afterwards. The small tattoo on his right arm, what was it, why was it so small? Mary. No arrow, no heart, just Mary.

  I closed my eyes again as he mounted me, thinking of the movie I had seen just a year ago when I had closed my eyes in the movies in the rape scene because it repulsed me so, and then I knew he was in me and thrusting, and I tried to think of him as something inanimate, a machine, it would only take a minute more, and it would be over, over, over. It was an accident that my eyes opened,)ust a slit for a second, and I saw his face. He had a desperate, wild, anguished expression. It was grotesque to call this making love.

  I hadn't felt his orgasm, but when my eyes opened, he was standing at the bedside, detumescent now.

  It was over, thank God, it was over.

  Four

  Thomassy

  How many hundreds of clients over the years have responded to "Tell me what happened?" by proceeding to convince me of their inarticulateness. Most people use the language as if it were a grab bag of words, flinging them about in the hope that some will fit their meaning well enough to convey, loosely, what they want to say. Francine Widmer, to the contrary, strove for precision. If her first comment about something didn't satisfy her, she modified it. Her mind seemed to work the way I imagined a sculptor worked on a block of stone, chiseling away the debris until he got to the truth. When a client first tells me his or her story, I look for those small facial expressions — the tic of concealment, the eyes desperate to please — that sometimes tell you more than the words do. With Francine Widmer, one could concentrate on the words. During her recital of the events of March 22,I began to admire the inside of her head.

  Which is quite a discipline considering how the outside looked, not just the strangely shaped eyes and the magnificent cheekbones, but also the curve of her long neck, the occasional pale blue vein under the skin, the way she sat tall like a dancer.

  And though she must have been more distressed than she let me see, she didn't lose her sense of humor, which most people do the instant they are angry.

  When she finished her story of the rape, I said "Thank you." One of her brows arched upward.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  "That's what he said."

  "Who?"

  "Koslak. Before he left he said thank you."

  A thief acknowledging the donor. A point to remember about Koslak if we went to trial.

  "A few more questions, Francine."

  "Yes."

  Most people would have said All right.

  "What was the first moment when you felt there might be trouble?"

  She thought. "When he exposed himself."

  "Not before?"

  "He was just a neighbor come to borrow something. He was friendly."

  "Wouldn't the wife normally come for a cup of something?"

  "Normal isn't normal these days. I did wonder why he hadn't gone to the people across the hall upstairs. It crossed my mind that perhaps the wives didn't get on."

  "All right. When he exposed himself. Did you think of screaming, that a scream might scare him off?"

  "I don't think I've ever screamed out loud in my life."

  "Not even on a roller coaster?"
r />   "I was never much for scaring myself. Look, I realized this was very weird behavior, but if you start screaming at every crazy you see, you'd better stay out of New York. I didn't at first feel it as a threat to me. He was a neighbor. I had seen him on the stairs several times. I had seen him at the gas station. Suddenly the neighbor behaves weird. I guess I hoped he was an exhibitionist, something like that. Do you understand? I didn't immediately see it as a threat to me."

  "Did you think of screaming at any point?"

  Francine put her long fingers to her lips. "Yes. As a matter of fact, twice. When he wouldn't let me telephone, for a second I was going to scream as loud as I could, and immediately thought they wouldn't hear me in the street, the windows were closed, a neighbor might or might not hear. Everybody hears somebody scream once in a while, they might or might not investigate. I doubt that they'd call the police. I guess what I thought was that if someone did come to the door, Koslak might make me say it was all right, or he might zip up and let them in, he had that perfect excuse, the cup he came in with, he'd lie about everything else. I'd feel ridiculous."

  "Wouldn't it have been better to feel ridiculous than to be raped?"

  "I wasn't thinking sensibly."

  "You should have screamed."

  "I wasn't sure anyone could hear me. I thought he'd get violent if I screamed. Okay, I should have screamed."

  "And you didn't. All right, do you see what I'm getting at?"

  "You're questioning me about things other people will be questioning me about."

  "They won't be as friendly. They'll want to show that you didn't take advantage of early opportunities to scare him off, that maybe you were leading him on."

  "But—"

  "The courtroom, if we get there, is a very tough and dirty forum designed to protect the innocent."

  "He wasn't innocent."

  "He has the presumption of innocence in his favor. Did you at any point consider using physical means to stop him?"

  "I said so."

  "Would you have known what to do?"

  "You mean like knee him in the balls, or a thumb in his eye, sure. I went to one of those consciousness-raising things. I saw a karate demonstration, one of those lethal blows, you know, the bridge of the nose, the Adam's apple. There was the scissors lying right there. Maybe I couldn't bring myself to kill him, I didn't know if I could, maybe all I'd do is hurt him and make him angrier and he'd kill me, you just don't think cleady under circumstances like that. I might have missed."

  "The truth is…"

  "I really thought I could outsmart him, talk him out of it."

  "You know what others will see."

  "What?"

  "That you didn't scream, and that you had an idea of how to defend yourself and didn't do it."

  She put her left thumb and forefinger in the inside corners of her eyes, sighing as if from sudden great weariness.

  "Did you cry? When he left."

  "I don't usually cry."

  "Look," I said, "I'm sorry if this is trying for you. We're just fact gathering. We needed to assess our cards and their cards. It's better to know where our weaknesses are."

  "Yes."

  "Now tell me what happened immediately afterward."

  "When he left, I—"

  "No. Before he left."

  "He went into the bathroom, it's just off the bedroom, left the door open, I heard the sink run, I suppose he was washing himself off so his wife wouldn't detect anything, I don't know."

  "Did you put your dress back on?"

  "It was a caftan really, not a dress. I just pulled it over me on the bed, like a blanket."

  "You didn't think of escaping, or calling the police?"

  "Actually, I didn't think of anything except would he hurry up and leave so I could take a bath."

  "That was the worst thing you could do."

  "They told me at the hospital. I just didn't think. I'll remember it the next time."

  "I hope there won't be a next time."

  "The son of a bitch could come down any time. He got in once, why not again? The odds are on his side, the damn law's on his side."

  "The law is on nobody's side. It's a game."

  "A game?"

  "Like checkers. Like chess. Everybody starts the same. It's the moves you make that count. I'm trying to plan our tactics. Please try to understand."

  She did that deep breath thing she does.

  "Okay," she said.

  "Now. He got dressed?"

  "Well, he didn't leave naked."

  "Did he say anything?"

  "Like goodbye? I told you he said thank you. When I didn't answer he said see you around, something like that. For him it was normal."

  "And then?"

  "I bathed. I douched. I wanted more than anything else to talk to someone, to tell someone. It was too damn grotesque."

  "Yes, I know."

  "Well, I called Dr. Koch, my anchor."

  "And?"

  "He was impossible."

  "I'm surprised."

  "Think how damn surprised I was! Anyway, I went to the hospital, then to the police station on Wicker Street, then to Dr. Koch's. Bill drove me. He's a young man I know."

  I hadn't thought about a boy friend. I may not have wanted her to have one.

  "Finally, Bill drove me to my parents' home."

  "Did he stay with you?"

  "In my parents' house? Are you kidding?"

  "It's a question you'll be asked. Tell me about the hospital."

  "Nothing to tell. A bull dyke filled out a form. A kid resident examined me. He said he couldn't take a sample or whatever because I had douched and bathed. He said he saw no internal injuries. In fact, he said there was no sign that I had had sexual intercourse, much less forcible."

  "Great."

  "I told him I knew who did it. He said to tell it to the police."

  "Tell me about that."

  "Well, I knew where the precinct was. I went and asked the desk sergeant if I could see a police matron. He asked what was the problem? I told him. He sent me upstairs to talk to a detective and the matron. They filled out forms."

  "Did they offer to go back home with you?"

  "No."

  "Did you tell them you knew who did it?"

  "Of course!"

  "What did they do?"

  "They wrote it down and said it was a serious accusation. I could be sued if I charged somebody with something I couldn't prove. They asked if somebody had witnessed the alleged offense. They kept calling it that, alleged offense. I said no, it happened in my apartment, there was no one there. They asked about the hospital and I had to tell them it was no use. I told them I knew who it was, and they kept saying it wasn't enough, I needed proof."

  "What were the names of the detective and the matron?"

  "I don't know!"

  "Well, we can get it off the report. If they filed it."

  "You mean they might not have kept the form?"

  "Anything is possible. Where did you go from the police station?"

  "To Dr. Koch's. He wasn't helpful. I was angry. He was the one who told me to see a lawyer. That's when Bill drove me home to my parents."

  "You told your parents."

  "More or less."

  "What does that mean?"

  "There's a limit to what you can tell your parents. I told my father because Dr. Koch suggested I see a lawyer."

  "Let's stop a minute. Understand this: you are the only witness we have."

  "I know."

  "We'll have to come up with very strong corroboration from independent sources for a jury."

  "What kind?"

  "That's the problem."

  "What about Dr. Koch?"

  "What he knows, he heard it from you. That's hearsay. That's the same story, not corroboration. However, we have a little time. My date's not till seven. I want to hear about your relationship to Dr. Koch, why you went to him, what you discuss. I realize that's private, but you see, if we
succeed in persuading the D.A. or anybody else to take any action against this man, it's going to come out that you are seeing an analyst. That means — to the average person — that you have emotional problems, that you're neurotic, that… now don't get jumpy, we have to face the facts, that you could have made up some of the elements of this story. Or all of it."

  Francine, who did not usually cry, was fighting to control her tears.

  "Go ahead if you have to," I said.

  "I'm not crying," she sobbed as I offered her a Kleenex.

  She was crying uncontrollably when I said, "That's good."

  Blowing her nose, trying to stop her sobs, she said, "What the hell do you mean that's good!"

  "It'll be useful on the witness stand." I handed her another Kleenex.

  "You bastard. You wanted to see me cry."

  "I needed to know if you could. It's part of my preparation." I put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not a bastard," I said. "I'm a lawyer. Now tell me about Dr. Koch."

  Five

  Widmer

  It was over a year ago when I went to see Dr. Koch, an event fraught with the possibilities of embarrassment for someone like myself. On the phone I had said to him, "This is Archibald Widmer. I'd like to make an appointment."

  I hadn't expected him to recognize my name — we travel in very different circles — but it seemed to me that if a man with a cultivated voice asks a doctor for an appointment, it should be a matter of simply finding a mutually convenient date and hour.

  "Mr. Widmer," Dr. Koch said in an accent I took to be German — I didn't learn till later that he was Viennese — "I am not sure I can take on another patient at the moment."

  I set him straight at once. "I'm not a prospective patient," I told him. "I merely wanted a consultation about my daughter. One hour is all I'm asking. When it's convenient."

  I don't see why we are so intimidated by doctors, particularly specialists, and most particularly psychoanalysts. I was tempted to say they are people like ourselves, but that would not be true. First of all, so many of them in the New York area, frankly, are Jews, as I'm almost certain Dr. Koch is, and, actually, I think one would find a preponderance of them — I mean Jewish psychoanalysts — in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, perhaps even Boston. They get an hourly rate for their services, which sets a ceiling on their income in an economy like ours, but lawyers like myself do also, theoretically at least, though I would be the first to admit that when I undertake an issue with important commercial considerations, my firm's fee, while ostensibly based on time, is usually altered upwards to more nearly reflect a percentage of the client's interest. The sophisticated client knows it. But an analyst like Koch, so near the end of his working life, is probably getting something between forty and seventy-five dollars per hour, while a considerably younger lawyer might make nearly twice as much. Please don't jump to the easy conclusion that I wonder about the preponderance of Jewish analysts because it would seem to be in conflict with the ostensible zeal of so many Jews to amass fortunes, or that I consciously value a person's advice by his affluence. I suppose what I'm really saying is that it would have been my preference to consult an American-born psychiatrist who had done his undergraduate work at Yale or Williams or Princeton, the pronunciation of whose name was never in doubt, and who practiced on the East Side of Manhattan, not the West Side as Koch did, in a neighborhood that had once been predominantly new middle class and now suffered shops with Spanish-language signs in their windows.